Latest from Jeff Schultz

Recent odds, according to those with big buildings and $7.99 buffets, have the Falcons listed at 16-1 to win the Super Bowl, the Braves up to 14-1 to win the World Series and the Hawks at 1,000-1 to win the NBA title, give or take a major organ. This should be viewed as relatively comforting news for Atlanta sports fans because it means perceptions...

The only certainty about this next chapter of, “LeBron James Holds Sports World Hostage,” is that the league’s best player will not soon declare, “I want to be a Hawk.” Because this is not sports Neverland. Rebuilding franchises from cities without championship pedigrees don’t get to play in the rich...

If cardiologists were capable of examining a city’s sports heart, Atlanta’s would look more battered than most. It would be flattened by tire tracks from a vehicle with New England plates, dented by a Jim Leyritz-autographed bat, blown into little pieces by an explicable busted coverage and an Alabama freshman quarterback by way...

The words of Nelson Mandela are inscribed on a water sculpture outside the Center of Civil Rights and Human Rights in downtown Atlanta. “For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” Inside the same downtown Atlanta museum, another legend...

One day, the basketball world will look at an old picture of Luka Doncic wearing an Atlanta Hawks’ hat from the night of the 2018 NBA draft and think one of two things: 1) “Dumbest trade Travis Schlenk ever made”; or 2) “That man was a visionary.” Welcome to the night of second-guessing. It took only until Schlenk&rsquo...

There is angst among some Falcons executives and fans because Julio Jones skipped voluntary “organized team activities” – Arts and crafts? Three-legged races? – and did not show up for a three-day minicamp, which took place more than six weeks before training camp and nine weeks before the first exhibition and 13 weeks...

There are two absolutes about every major pro sports draft. One is that every team has a plan. The other is that no team builder is going to tell you his plan. When a general manager speaks publicly, he will alternate between lies and half-truths, and by half-truths I mean half-lies and half-decipherable substances, the verbal equivalent...

So about Julio and his contract. Not that Julio, the other one. Braves pitcher Julio Teheran was 23 years old and had pitched only one full season when the team gave him a six-year, $32.4 million contract extension in 2014. The thinking in committing long-term to a young starter was Teheran had “a chance to be a top part of the rotation...

So about Julio and his contract. Not that Julio, the other one. Braves pitcher Julio Teheran was 23 years old and had pitched only one full season when the team gave him a six-year, $32.4 million contract extension in 2014. The thinking in committing long-term to a young starter was Teheran had “a chance to be a top part of the rotation...

It was more than four hours before the first pitch, and Brian Snitker had started his routine, pregame serenity walk. Out of the clubhouse. Down a corridor. Through the doors and of SunTrust Park. Down Battery Avenue. Over the bridge that looped over the interstate. Down the parkway and onto a trail and that loops near the Chattahoochee River...

In their quest to draft, trade for and sign -- occasionally illegally -- young pitchers in hopes of stocking the franchise for the next several years, the Braves have been unable to answer one question: Who is going to stick? But one starter was reaffirmed Thursday night. Sean Newcomb is in only his second major league season, but the 24-year-old...